Facebook graph changed! Share count no longer works.

[jakewhiteley]

It appears using https://graph.facebook.com/?ids=http://your-url-here.com, now only returns a share count HALF of the time.

The other half it returns a JSON object containing the OG data for that URL but no share count, like count or comment count.

This means half of my website has 0 shares on it, and half half have shares.

I've filed a long complaint at facebook as if they are removing support from Graph of a particular function, they should roll it out all at once or not at all.

Choosing to remove share counts from some URL's only = irritating.

The alternative is using Facebooks FQL method which does still return counts everytime.

EXAMPLE: here is the JSON object returned from https://graph.facebook.com/?ids=http://gkbcinc.com/aaron-swartz-and-the-ongoing-battle-for-the-internets-soul/

{
   "http://gkbcinc.com/aaron-swartz-and-the-ongoing-battle-for-the-internets-soul/": {
      "url": "http://gkbcinc.com/aaron-swartz-and-the-ongoing-battle-for-the-internets-soul/",
      "type": "article",
      "title": "Aaron Swartz and the Ongoing Battle for the Internet's Soul - GKBC",
      "locale": {
         "locale": "en_us"
      },
      "image": [
         {
            "url": "http://gkbcinc.com/wp-content/uploads/Aaron-Schwartz-300x200.jpg"
         },
         {
            "url": "http://gkbcinc.com/wp-content/uploads/ITU-conference.jpg"
         },
         {
            "url": "http://gkbcinc.com/wp-content/uploads/Anonymous.jpg"
         }
      ],
      "description": "Aaron Swartz's untimely death brings the debate about control of the internet into stark relief",
      "site_name": "GKBC",
      "updated_time": "2013-01-25T11:53:13+0000",
      "id": "190893914385022"
   }
}

No counts to be found anywhere.

[jakewhiteley]

And just so you know - Easily the best share count plugin out there. I have hacked my version of sharrre.js to always get the counts, but I don't want this issue getting picked up by others and ruining the reputation of your awesome project because Facebook can't make their mind up.

[Julienh]

Thanks jakewhiteley, I think Facebook remove counter when sharing = 0, see : https://graph.facebook.com/?ids=http://sharrre.com and https://graph.facebook.com/?ids=http://sharrreeeee.com

[jakewhiteley]

Thank you for the quick reply!

That may be true, but I was getting this on pages that 100% did have shares.

http://gkbcinc.com/the-gkbcinc-short-story-competition/ has 98 as a share total which using the Facebook developer sandbox highlighted when using FQL.

So a little more digging indicated that Facebook have stopped giving out Share counts via graph method for certain undisclosed pages as people are finding this all over the web.

Solution: Line 106:

facebook: "http://graph.facebook.com/?id={url}&callback=?",

To

facebook: "https://api.facebook.com/method/fql.query?format=json&query=SELECT+total_count+FROM+link_stat+WHERE+url+%3D+'{url}'",

then

Line 463:

else if(typeof json.shares !== "undefined"){  //Facebook
count += parseInt(json.shares, 10);
}

To

else if(typeof json[0].total_count !== "undefined"){  //Facebook
count += parseInt(json[0].total_count, 10);
}

And voila! 100% of the time share count bypassing Facebooks new 'change the way the API works but don't update the documentation' idea.

Try : https://api.facebook.com/method/fql.query?format=json&query=SELECT+total_count+FROM+link_stat+WHERE+url+%3D+'facebook.com'

To get a result

[jakewhiteley]

I should also say - I was sharing a page via the sharrre plugin and the number would update.

On refresh it would be back to 0 - so this proves that it is not just for pages with 0 shares.